Dropbox’s Project Infinite shows all company files locally but stores them remotely

Cloud file syncing and sharing software company Dropbox today is announcing the launch of Project Infinite, a new capability that will allow users to see all files that they have access to on their desktop — but that will keep everything stored on Dropbox’s cloud infrastructure, so as not to take up precious local storage.

“Everything in the company’s Dropbox that you’re given access to, whether it’s stored locally or in the cloud, will show up in Dropbox on your desktop. If it’s synced locally, you’ll see the familiar green checkmark, while everything else will have a new cloud icon,” Dropbox product manager Genevieve Sheehan wrote in a blog post.

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The feature shows metadata for files in folders in the Finder on OS X and the File Explorer in Windows. If you have a file that’s stored remotely that you want to store locally, you can right-click on it and select “Save local copy.”

The announcement of the feature for Dropbox Business customers follows Google’s announcement last week that users can now select which specific subfolders to keep in sync on their local desktop computers.

Box and Microsoft’s OneDrive services don’t currently offer anything along the lines of what Project Infinite can do.

“Sponsor customers” have started using the feature, Sheehan wrote, but Dropbox isn’t saying when it will become available to all organizations paying for Dropbox Business. And it’s not clear if non-paying users will ever get access to the feature.

Dropbox said last month that it had 500 million users; in November the company said it had 150,000 paying business customers.